Századok – 2023

2023 / 6. szám - TANULMÁNY - Bácsatyai Dániel: A széplelkű kamaraispán és más szerencselovagok. III. András olaszai

BÁCSATYAI DÁNIEL

THE BELLETRIST

CHAMBER

ISPÁN

AND OTHER ADVENTURERS The Italians of Andrew III By Dániel

Bácsatyai

SUMMARY

The written evidence concerning the persons of Italian origin who lived in the court of King Andrew III of Hungary (1290-1301), who had himself been raised in a Venetian patrician family, is small in amount but all the more valuable. The present study accordingly aims to take stock of such sources, with a special regard to the king’s uncle, Albertino Morosini, who

made a spectacular career in both Venice and Hungary. Not all the persons who were elevated to political prominence by Andrew II came from Venice: for instance, the most completely documented Italian member of the king’s entourage, Baldo di Passignano, a man with literary ambitions as well, left Florence in order to join the service of the Morosini

family.

Exiled from his city, formally on account of his Ghibelline sympathies, this adventurous soldier of fortune was high in Andrew Ill’s favour, whom he served as chamber ispán

and

ispán

of

Szepes as well. Likewise on the wane in its native city was the Venetian Tonisto family, previously incorrectly identified in the scholarly literature, whose members emerge in the Hungarian sources as lords of Medvevár and

chamber ispánt

of

Zagreb. Yet the reign of the last Árpád

king

proved to be too short for his Italian supporters to put down solid roots in the Kingdom of Hungary. Those, however, who managed to keep their composure in the troubled times following the king’s death, did not leave Hungary empty-handed.

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